Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Storytellers, Indiscretions, and Hoses Eh?

When Jim Bob stuck his head through the door and looked around he really didn't see anything all that much out of the ordinary. He stepped inside.

There was a large group standing over by the bar and it looked kinda like Charlie was telling another of his stories about past games, or trips, or adventures, or events that many of the listeners were participants.

Nearer the door was a smaller cluster of people who had concerned looks on their faces as they hovered over two people that appeared to have fainted.

"Hey help me! I'm stuck."

They all turned around to see Burt with his head sticking out from the hole in the door.

Mary walked over, unhooked Burt's collar from a jagged piece of wood, pushed his head back through the door, then walked away - muttering "idiots" to herself.

Burt stepped in, saw that Carol and Archie had fainted, and shouted "Stand back I'm a paramedic," and proceeded to initiate mouth to mouth resuscitation on Carol.

Denis, who had come downstairs with the rest of the Old Boy's Party left behind, shouted out "does this mean Burt, that you as a paramedic just jumped out of an airplane to get here? You arrived by parachute?"

Jack, Carol's husband started tapping Burt on the shoulder, "Hey, hey, knock it off she only fainted you putz!"

"Oh, hi Burt!"

Everyone turned to see Carol open her eyes. She had a sly smile on her face.

Archie soon revived and it seemed that everything was slowly returning to normal.

Well almost.

See, it turns out that Carol, feeling ignored again by Jack who was over at the Lodge, had spent the previous evening cuddling and watching an old movie with Archie at the Meadowlark Motel 20 miles south on Farm to Market Road. It was a rerun of a Freddie Kruger movie. And when Jim Bob's axe split the door open, both Archie and Carol passed out from sheer fright overload.

Jack after seeing Carol revived walked back to the bar to get a refill, but Rose, Archie's wife just stood there with a perplexed look on her face.

Rose, who has a PhD in Qualitative Statistics, and whose mind never stops, began calculating what the odds were for two random individuals to faint over the sight of an axe coming through a door.

Pete who was observing all of the events, saw Rose with that faraway look she gets when she runs numbers and he watched as she began looking back and forth between Archie and Carol.

"Oh-oh this can't be good," he muttered!

He slipped up next to Rose in time to hear her murmuring:

"..... two random events, A and B are said to be statistically independent if the conditional probability of A, given B, coincides with the unconditional probability of A........ the pairwise independence of the events Ai and Aj for all i does..... not equal j(i,j=1,2,......n) does not imply that the events Ai,......An are jointly independent."

Pete just muttered to himself, "Oh-oh this really can't be good!

At that moment Captain Greg burst through the door, both hands gripping the nozzle of a high pressure hose. Behind him a couple of the old boys were hanging on with all the strength they could muster.

"Now, Captain, now can we turn the water on?"

Bodies went diving everywhere, people were screaming "No, no the fires out, stop don't do anything!"

Captain Greg with a perplexed, perhaps disappointed look on his face slowly lowered his nozzle and ordered his crew of volunteers to back up.

"Slowly Boys, I don't want this thing going off. No sudden moves lets just ease our way back out the door. Easy fellas easy!"

After safely retiring the hose from the bar, Captain Greg came back in to fill out his report.

"Well Greg," Mary responded rather sarcastically. "Charlie was being El Flamo again and he caught some cobwebs on fire and it started to spread."

"Someone called the Mounties, but by the time you showed up a couple of the moms put the fire out by shaking several liters of soda water and spraying it out."

"I have a special announcement!"

Everyone turned to see Sarge standing at the base of the stairs that led up to the Old Boys Lounge.

"You are all invited upstairs to enjoy a delightful treat and a round of libations," shouted Sarge.

The fire was forgotten, and Sarge was nearly trampled by U-35s rushing up the stairs for a free drink.

After everyone arrived upstairs, drinks were passed around, and a toast was offered for the celebration and crowning of the Ice Queen that was to happen tomorrow - Christmas Eve.

Sarge then stepped forward and lifted a table cloth of a several mounds of what appeared to be something deep fried and bellowed out, "my friends I offer you my latest culinary masterpiece - Sarge's Deep Fat Fried Duck Feet!"

A collective, yet quiet groan rippled through the crowd.

No one stepped forward.

And then everyone looked over at the potluck table and saw a curious sight. A strange rather slender, odd looking man was spotted picking his way through the remains of the leftovers. Rather unkempt looking he had a long beard and was wearing a rather outdated trench coat. Old but clean.

No one could really tell who it was. Then Carol stepped forward to introduce herself. The odd little man turned to her and in a voice that belied his stature bellowed out, "Hello luv, my name is Johnny!"

Everyone surrounded him, "Johnny what the heck are you doing here?", someone asked.

"Why I hitched-hiked up to the Lodge to see my God-Daughter crowned Ice Queen tomorrow!"

The Seattle Old Boys were shocked and happy, Johnny hadn't been seen in years.

"Ahem," Sarge coughed politely.

And with that everyone walked over and grabbed a duck foot. They collectively bit into the web, silently groaned, and covered their mouths to keep from wretching. Sarge was shocked. Humiliated. And what was worse Johnny yelled out, "Sarge these are delicious - I love how you used the combination of cardamon and oregano!"

Sarge was devastated, not only did his peers appear to not like his creation, but his chance to tweak the recipe, adjust the process, and go global was just ruined because his two secret spices were blurted out to everyone.

A booming voice from over by the bar was heard to say "All the Old Boys know that duck feet are best served steamed. What was he thinking?"

Another voice answered, "I won't let another bit of his food pass my lips until it rains frogs!"